I am using an ATI aiw pro 32 meg to capture my analog video. I have been able to capture a very good quality clip in AVI format. Once I convert it to the VCD specs It looks very blurry and I see squares on the page. I am using Ulead 4.0 to convert. Can anyone help me with the quality issue. I have been reading most of the forum and I can't quite find the answers to my problems. I am looking to converse through e-mail with someone who has some experience with the ATI card and Ulead video program. Thanks.

-- Kirby Petersen (bluetuna@genevaonline.com), July 13, 2001

Answers

I only make SVCDs, so I can only help you a little. VCD is always blocky in high motion scenes. This is because of the low bit rate the video is recorded at. I assume by Ulead, you mean Ulead Video Studio which comes free with the ATI card. I think it's a terrible product. You might try getting a copy of Virtual Dub to do the AVI to MPEG-1 conversions. It's free and a lot of people like it. I don't convert from AVI to MPEG-1/2, so I can offer no practical advice here, but Virtual Dub is a great program. I think TMPGenc (www.tmpgenc.com - also free) might able to convert for you and I have used it. It does a pretty good job.

-- Jason (Jason.Shumate@equant.com), July 13, 2001.

Ulead Video Studio 4 is a fair product; what's bad about it is its MPEG encoder engine, which is that by Ligos LSX. After having taken a bad rap for this, Ligos has upped its MPEG suite recently to better reviews. If you still want to use ULVS4 create movie using the original AVI codec. Use the resulting *.avi file as source for TMPGenc, which is galaxies better than Ligos in terms of quality produced (and light years slower...?) and freeware.

-- Mehmet Tekdemir (turk690@yahoo.com), July 16, 2001.

i capture first ..then go to virtual dub to put on filters which make it look better..then i use ulead just for titles and transitions..i then render it "uncompressed" avi then i use tmpg enc to encode for vcd then nero to burn vcd.uleads codecs for conversion really suck and i dont recommend using ulead to convert.even the huffy uv "lossless" codec which i use with vdub doesnt work that good with ulead.but i do recommend it for vdub.

-- john boy (johnbmx4christ@yahoo.com), December 04, 2001.